Luisa A. Igloria

The Return

When he re-enters her life the trees have begun their preparations for the world’s slow receding into white. She sits on a bench watching sleeves of color falling—rust and yellow, strips of feathered green, pooling on the streets where men sweep striped restaurant awnings clean and carry the damp wrought-iron café chairs and tables away from the sidewalks to indicate their use is no longer recommended. When he arrives they move indoors and take a chair, each in front of the other, next to a picture window. Against the red brick interior, a still life. They can make out the dry ivory husks of garlic cloves, the crusty surface of a French boule dusted with flour and a yellow sifting of grain. The coffee comes, strong and hot, in seafoam-tinted ceramic mugs with a nautilus pressed like a small ear near each base. Any tremors which pass in the air between them, around them, might go undetected. The light, falling early, softens the glint of emeralds in his eyes. A word, starfruit, rolls on the table of conversation, compact as a glass that holds a sip of water. Its two middle consonants bend the mouth in the shape of a leaf. She’s seen it in the supermarket in this neighborhood—its five ridges, five seams, five spines a clean writing on its succulent back. Sliced thin and horizontally on the chopping board, a handful of stars to scatter over a salad plate, to slip into the broth, so its clear green note forgives the smoked meat its excesses. And what of necessity? Ask the beautiful fish that turn and speed like arrows throughout the day in the pool with no exit to the river, what the ripeness of their colors is for. Their scales flash, brilliant and vermilion, joyous, as if in defiance. Each moment gathers and thickens like awareness between the tips of fingers, explaining how the present can be plausible and lovely, even when later, returning once again to its monastery, the heart sounds the brown notes of its bell-clapper, shaves its head, lies down to sleep with the sorrow of what it will love but cannot keep.